Thursday, March 5th 2026
Xbox Project Helix Officially Tipped As Next-Gen Console, Will "Play Your Xbox and PC Games"
There has been a lot of talk about the future of the Xbox gaming brand since it was announced that Phil Spencer would be stepping down as head of Microsoft's gaming business. The new CEO of Xbox, Asha Sharma, has previously defended against a barrage of this skepticism, revealing that she has in mind a "return to Xbox," and with new posts on X by both Xbox and Sharma, she confirmed that part of this return does indeed include a hardware launch. The next-gen Xbox is called Project Helix, and although neither Sharma nor Xbox itself has revealed much more about the next-gen console than the logo and project name, Sharma also hinted that more information may be revealed at GDC, which is slated to take place on March 9-13.
The next-gen Xbox has long been rumored, with recent rumors claiming that it will be a hybrid device, bridging the gap between a living room console and a PC—perhaps in response to the recent rise of devices like the Steam Deck and the pressure of the upcoming Steam Machine—and Sharma more or less hints at this in her post, stating that "Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games." This isn't the first time Sharma has spoken about the next-gen Xbox hardware platform, having mentioned it in a recent interview as a key part of the brand's future. Speculation about Sharma's leadership of Xbox has also veered into deep skepticism, largely resulting from Sharma's history as CEO of Microsoft's CoreAI platform and her willingness to use AI in the gaming industry, even if she claims that she will not tolerate AI slop.
Source:
Xbox on X
The next-gen Xbox has long been rumored, with recent rumors claiming that it will be a hybrid device, bridging the gap between a living room console and a PC—perhaps in response to the recent rise of devices like the Steam Deck and the pressure of the upcoming Steam Machine—and Sharma more or less hints at this in her post, stating that "Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games." This isn't the first time Sharma has spoken about the next-gen Xbox hardware platform, having mentioned it in a recent interview as a key part of the brand's future. Speculation about Sharma's leadership of Xbox has also veered into deep skepticism, largely resulting from Sharma's history as CEO of Microsoft's CoreAI platform and her willingness to use AI in the gaming industry, even if she claims that she will not tolerate AI slop.
48 Comments on Xbox Project Helix Officially Tipped As Next-Gen Console, Will "Play Your Xbox and PC Games"
If she cant answer any of these then xbox is for sure pretty dead. People are already calling it dead but its going to be deader than dead.
And then she would return to planning more layoffs.
With a friendly smile,
Fred.
On the more serious note, Microsoft made stupid mistake for creating XBox in first place - they should have treated it as Windows for Gaming from the beginning. But with current Windows state and Microsoft capabilities, I doubt they have enough quality people to actually do something like that.
So, I expect them to fail. Miserably.
Now I'm gonna spend the rest of the weekend trying to figure out what a 'return to Xbox' is supposed to mean.
...
No, I'm not, lmao, who the fuck cares - Microsoft and gaming was always DOA and will always be DOA, just like their Mobile effort, their Surfaces, and everything else that isn't good old boring Windows actually doing what it should be doing: be an OS we can use. Microsoft serves no other purpose, but they're welcome to keep trying while we keep nuking it into the ground.Sorry, what? Games for Windows was already tainted at that point :)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_LiveIf you word it like that it almost sounds like alien anal probing or something.
It wasn't until later that Steam made PC gaming a "click and play" thing. Microsoft did attempt something similar with Games for Windows, they even showcased the Halo 2 port that you could immediately play while it installed in the background. But that failed pretty fast and lots of games became unplayable when it did, until they got re-released on Steam.
So now MS realized that they will have a very hard time to keep the gamer locked in the Xbox store, and will build an Xbox that's locking down a PC rather than opening up a console.
But yes, from that point of view, Xbox makes sense.
There's still no word on the price for the Steam Machine (which, in my opinion, isn't even good enough to be a leftover for a Nintendo Switch Pro!). Is there a release date yet? No, of course not. The reasons for this are as clear as a glass of Apollinaris.
With a friendly smile,
Fred.
And judging by the APU die size (similar to Strix Halo) it'll be ~$1500... or some acceptable price combined with a monthly subscription.AMD said first half this year. Valve said it performs > 70% of peoples hardware on Steam. Tech insiders say the hardware costs ~$500, targeting $700-800.
Why you would want to? Well, because the target market is naive console crowd, not PC crowd. Microsoft is offering plug and play for the mainstream n00bs. Steam is offering plug and play for the actual gamers. I"m not saying its a valid strategy, but it is what it is I guess.'Return to Xbox' is a complete PR failure to begin with. Its pretty interesting to think of the thought process behind saying such a thing.
Miss Sharma is just cobbling together random PR lines, is my conclusion. I bet she doesn't even half realize what she is saying when she says 'return to Xbox'. If she did, the only possible conclusions of how this is received could be:
- a return to a locked console ecosystem (old news, they have that)
- cancelling the 'Xbox is everywhere, your games go with you whatever device u got' strategy
- whatever is supposed to happen to their on-demand gaming is ambiguous in all of this
- if their next console is not locked, what the fuck are they returning to then, because Xbox never had that.
It just makes zero sense whatsoever, but that aligns nicely with Microsoft's 'we'll stop our AI push'- AI push, their promise to have the last Windows ever, etc etc.
Its just a massive show of corporate misfire and incompetence.
Oh wait, only modern jank.
By the way:
Do-it-yourself guide: Build Valve's new Steam Machine console yourself
ComputerBase (de)
You're better off doing it yourself, even “now.”
With a friendly smile,
Fred.